Do you enjoy writing? Would you like to share your knowledge with current undergraduate students? If the answer to these questions is "yes", then I'd like to hear from you. I'm looking for graduates of the BSBA and BeCOM programs to write about their experiences while researching and completing a thesis. Write as much or as little as you want and I'll package the experiences up and share them with our current seniors. Let me know what it was really like to go through the thesis process.

Do you have a second life? Well, the librarians at McMaster University in Canada do. They've set up a virtual library service in the online game Second Life, and are looking for someone to employ as a "gaming librarian". If any of you interested in doing something similar for IUM library, come and see me.

We make a special effort to find and collect resources to support our Masters programs on financial engineering and on luxury goods and services. In addition, our location in Monaco gives us a particular interest in developing collections on the business and economy of Monaco.

Those of you who enjoy live music, might be interested in a British band called Mr Hudson and the Library. They're currently on tour in the UK, and a number of the gigs are actually in libraries. The music may not be to everyone's taste, although I quite like it. Check them out for yourself on YouTube. Any suggestions for music in the IUM library?

I'm glad to see that some of you are browsing and reading the new library website content. I'm making changes when I get feedback, so please don't be backward in coming forward. Today I changed the quote at the top of the welcome page - the one by Frank Zappa had raised a couple of eyebrows. I hope you all like the new quote by Shelby Foote.

Here's an invention that could solve the book store's problems of buying too many textbooks and not selling them. It's a machine that prints out books on demand, for those of you who still prefer to read from paper pages rather than electronic ones.

Here's an interesting piece of news for all those students fascinated by the new, exciting markets of China and India. It seems that the Societe des Bains de Mer are targeting Chinese gamblers at the moment, and starting to develop strategies for attracting Indian clients.

Guess where you'll find the most expensive residential property in Europe? Of course, it's Monaco, according to the Global Property Guide, which lists European cities, the price of residential property per square metre, and the rental yield.

I came across an interesting blog entry about the smelly habits of the rich and famous. I didn't realise that perfume could cost so much. Would you spend 600 euros on a bottle of perfume?

As you might imagine, I didn't post anything yesterday, I was too busy celebrating. I'm now just about to import the old library database into OpenBiblio, having just done two successful test imports. Quite a lot of work went into making this happen. Yesterday I went through each field working out what had to be deleted or replaced in order to get the file conversions to work. Here's a list of what needed to be done:

Book ID number - I decided to omit this, as each book will be assigned a new number along with a barcode, once in OpenBiblio.

ISBN - I had to ask our techie in residence, Dave, to write a little script to replace all the zeros that were lost when the database was imported to IUMA. The Dog was busy working on something for Dave, so it seemed like a fair swap.

I didn't get much done today except for sorting through some of the records in the Excel export of the old database.

Phew, sitting on your backside all day can be quite tiring. Today, I spent most of the morning working out how to get the library database entries into OpenBiblio. I chose 2 entries from the Excel spreadsheet and saved them as CSV files. Then, I used a tool called MARCedit to convert the CSV files into MARC readable files. Once in this format, the files can be imported into OpenBiblio. Unfortunately I had a problem in realising that the first time you import data, the default is set for "Test Load: True". In other words, it doesn't actually import the data, it just shows you what it would look like if it did it correctly. I finally gave in trying to work out what was wrong and asked the Dog. Of course, I should have clicked the button for "Test Load: False", and indeed when I did that, all the data was imported as if by magic.

I've been thinking about putting a library management system (LMS) in for IUM for some time now. If we're going to start offering a service to businesses in the community, then we need to keep a better check on the stock, and to do that, we need an electronic system. But I've no budget, so I decided to investigate some open source software, and with the help of a willing partner, known to some as Dog Byte, I started to work on moving the old library database onto the new LMS, OpenBiblio.

Other open source LMS

We also checked out Koha and myPHP. More about those later.

Researchers at Nottingham University Business School in the UK have published results indicating that experts rate Wikipedia's accuracy higher than non-experts. Maybe last year's controversy over Wikipedia's accuracy was unfounded? Thomas Chesney, a Lecturer in Information Systems at the school urges caution in extrapolating too generally from his study. For one thing, the sample size was small. For another, 13 percent of those in the "experts" group reported finding mistakes in their assigned articles. So that's all right then.

Google Books is probably the most famous source of online books, but this article in physorg.com lists a few more.

MScFE students should be grateful that none of their professors has decided to use Seth Klarman's book for class. It seems that the work, entitled Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor, is being sold second-hand for anything from 700 US Dollars upwards. Check out the story in Business Week.

UPDATE: Since this was originally posted, you may notice the Amazon link above is listing this tome at over 1,000 bucks. It's surely not a pump and dump scheme? 

Are e-Book readers up to the job of replacing books yet? Find out from Russel Smith's comparison of the latest models with the Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device.

A new report from the UK, says that there's now "evidence" that video games deserve a place in schools. What's the evidence? Techdirt.com points out the need for better quality research. 

Wal-Mart are looking to take shopper observation to the next level. They intend to deploy infra-red based technology for tracking shoppers' progress through their stores. Previously this was the preserve of observers with clipboards as described in Paco Underhill's Why We Buy (copy available in the IUM library).

Technology can help primary researchers gather much more raw data much more efficiently, but is this going too far?

The online game Second Life is breeding a virtual world of fashion design. The Wall Street Journal reports the same complications as the real world of fashion: 'A continuing headache for many designers is the ease with which others can copy their creations, and several have discovered boutiques that sell knockoffs of their clothes.

A psychology professor has come up with a brilliant and practical plan to save Britain from the epidemic of technology-facilitated exam cheating which is jeopardising the economy and the moral fortitude of its youth.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Graduate business students in the United States and Canada are more likely to cheat on their work than their counterparts in other academic fields, the author of a research paper said on Wednesday.

The study of 5,300 graduate students in the United States and Canada found that 56 percent of graduate business students admitted to cheating in the past year, with many saying they cheated because they believed it was an accepted practice in business.

"I'm working at a major university in the US, and have been charged with posting pod-casts of class lectures on the internet. The problem is whether or not posting the videos would allow students to skip class and just download the lecture, instead. I guess the problem is trying to strike the right balance between allowing good students to take advantage of this resource, but discourage bad students from staying at home all the time and watching all the lectures right before the exam."

After several years of argument, Ross Anderson of Cambridge University has persuaded his publisher to let him put his book "Security Engineering" online for free download.

The publishers thought for years that it was too risky to let authors put books online but they are gradually learning that this isn't so. Putting a book online often increases its sales; more people read it and those who find it useful often go buy a copy.